A Simulacrum of the Blues
Simulacrum for the Blues
I.
the moon slips through a keyhole
insinuating home where
the nearness of you seems
very faraway from
what the tangible songbird
unmoved by the waves
of starlight decides to sing
II.
the door, the d'or
the sense of place
slowly pull the cork
inhale rubies
not only because of
thirsty mind listening to
gypsy strings as dusty roses
gather in the effortless
edict to shower infinity
with the fragrance of
this single place
defended by nothing
but the naked truth
blossoming according to
the many meanings of home
which can only be heard
by stuffing this galaxy of words
back into the bottle
sealed with the drying scents
of rubies, rose petals and redacted
poems that should never make the voyage
III.
what if
home is the funhouse
mirror made to scan
the pixels
that give me the simulacrum of life
oscillating
wired to my nerves signaling
invitation to share
the fancies and fever dreams
within the circumference
of my skies
if these smoke signals
of the buried telegraph
unspool cables 40 leagues
beneath the sea
can you still see the smoke
that gets in my eyes
4. (is my lucky number)
the strangest yet most
mundane invitation
how I heard you
existed like a transmission
trailing a theoretical comet
in a cryptic declaration left behind
that resonated
modernist keys in a quark of sound
bent by refracted light shining
from a lost book of heretics
who were alchemists
of the improbable who
listen to Bob Wills on the
transistor radio caught in the desert
when no other radio station comes in
wholly unexpected though
I shoulda known
80 protons isn't the kind
of thang a person denotes
unless they're into quicksilver
Mercury the sure messenger
the accomplice of 49ers
& alchemists
operates like a spy
deep inside the labyrinth
V.
My device had run out of the
hogulating privilege
of energy for the night
on my way home at the tail end
of a tale that isn't
a Ned Washington lyric
one electric thought crossed
my mind simply to say hello
somehow summoning
"the annotated scrawls in the margins
where my heart is tattoed
by a palimpsest
that describes
the circumference of your skies"
that particle waving hello in quotes, well...
that's what I said
to myself in the car driving home
listening to jazz not my WWOZ
reigning over the rain in New Orleans
but still
left of the dial radio KMHD
thinking well...not much
of a howdy in them there words
that's no Ned Washington tune
either, but then life as a song is
distilled note by chromatic note
once we know the melody
so that the lyrics make the sail shudder
in a light wind beneath the inevitable
moonlight that offers a jangling key
just enough light on
this dim night
to send this invitation
to a simulacrum of the blues
6. (repeating 3 times... inevitably)
in the background a page from
a novel by Cortazar drops the needle
the plaintive trumpet of a dead man
carves marble from the wing-beat
stating the motion of the wave vs
eternity as Clifford Brown plays
"(I Don't Stand) The Ghost of a Chance (with You)"
se7en.
is a hurdy gurdy man spinning
vanished music beneath
the old steel bridge where
a yellow rose beckons
in a secret garden behind
hopscotch chalk bright
as the periodic table and
a dumpster filled with
forgotten promises
that only seem to matter to
the protons that vibrate
whether a door, a desert, a radio
plays sunrise softly
but backwards so that here
the moon reigns
describing a magnetic chaos
that gathers inevitability like thunder
to set the stage for
the improbable neutron
stage left entrance
a cloud of 120 required
the surreal rest of the gang
is already here riffing
"Stella by Starlight"
1/8th
a poem is a crazy way to say hello
even if as a neutron swept into the
magnetic quark of a lost signal
echo of the desires for a lyric
very nice to meet you
under these circumstances
when a simple melody will do
a songline that helps the heart
navigate how to wish upon a star
perhaps as a quark I should explain
we all come in flavors certainly
I am strange but aim to be charm
someday....
#9
meeting a stranger wearing
the curated labyrinth
that defends the heart requires
wings that do not melt beneath
the savage sun
for the trick of the light
to smile without regard
for the shadows that gloam
where my attention strays
like a kitten playing with string
theory in a world where the
simultaneous is but a simulacrum
of this one chance to say hello
who knows if this galaxy of words
will ever find a home
amidst this floating world
a simulacrum for the blues
by chefcdb 7.26.14 pdx